Thesis
by dramatorama
Summary: Quistis gets on a train and... damn the consequences?
1. Departure

He makes it so hard for her to explain herself, sitting there. Like the onus is on her to explain how, exactly, she came to this decision, and why, in her opinion, it is valid. Or maybe she's putting words in his mouth. Brain. Her brain. Maybe she ought to say something.

"I feel I'd be happier in a purely academic environment-" she says, abruptly, and blushes; as if Garden isn't rigorous enough in its standards (the three entrance exams she took, physical first, then later tactical and academic, before being considered for cadetship) and as if she hasn't been happy here, despite everything.

She doesn't know what to say to this man she has known all her life, and how must he feel about this? Surely he is not overjoyed at the prospect of losing a SeeD, they can't just promote a cadet lickety-split to take her place.

And yet, and yet, he's nodding gravely. "I can't say I'll be happy to see you go, but we both know you're ready to make a name for yourself in your field." At this, she blushes again- such a selfish field to be in, and she had been brought up never to show off.

"Don't come over all modest, now. Your work on-", he clears his throat and reads from her release form, "para-magic and its relationship with the genetic fight-or-flight survival mechanic- is unrivalled, or so I'm told."

"I'm the only one working on it, sir-" Well, of course she is, who has a 'limit break' like hers? Silly.

He is smiling gently now, an obvious attempt to ease her tension, and she can't help but offer a smile back, despite herself and her roiling stomach. Things might just be all right.

He signs the form with a single, florid movement, _Cid Kramer_ below her own too-careful _Quistis Trepe_.

* * *

"Of course, they can't let you go just like _that_," Xu is telling her, nodding for emphasis. "You _know_ the contract, how _convoluted_ it is, I mean why do you think you _never, ever _see any ex-SeeDs, because they're all _stuck here _or _dead_, for Hyne's sake-" Quistis winces at this, but lets it go.

"It's all done. Cid signed this. This morning." Holds out the signed release form, with its sub-clauses and handwritten amendments. "Once I get it to Gina next door, that's it." She's a little proud of how composed she is, sitting in her and Xu's shared office with a cup of cold tea on the desk and her desk drawer on her lap half full of the papers she's been sorting. When the form's handed to Gina, she'll have forty-eight hours until her dorm is re-assigned and she, and all her worldly goods are getting on a train.

"I can't be_lieve_ you pulled this off."

"Well-"

"Oh there's a catch, I knew there would be a catch. Don't tell me, he signed it as Seifer Almasy and Gina's going to take one look and start _cry_ing-"

_"Xu."_

"Sorry."

"I'm going to remain on the roster. Inactive. In case Garden gets a contract in Esthar, and they need me in particular. He said that. Just routine jobs. And no travelling." Xu laughs at this, but her hair is over her face, and Quistis can't see her expression.

"Come here, you lucky bitch. Give me a hug."

Quistis complies, then steps back and dabs her eyes.

"I am actually proud of you, you know." Xu says, her eyes just as damp.

She doesn't have much to pack, thank goodness. Her books and papers go into a trunk, to be shipped separately. The rest is just clothes, really, and a small box of mementoes, which, along with her small computer, will be easy enough to take with her.

On the last day, her room feels smaller, despite its bareness, and she busies herself with checking that all is in order and that nothing has been left behind. She remakes the bed with clean sheets in military fashion, checks underneath it one last time, and resets the door code before handing her keycard back to the Residency office.

It's the end of an academic year, for cadets at least, so her fussing goes unnoticed in the hurly-burly of shouted farewells between students and the emotional greetings of guardians and relatives at the gates as she leaves. No-one knows she's leaving today, save Xu, Cid and Gina, and Xu is probably expecting to see her again first.

She knows it's overly dramatic of her, this unannounced departure, yet she can't bear to say it to anyone else. Her small circle of friends will have to be phoned later, and they will tell the students who call themselves Trepies, probably. But she'll call, she decides, when she's far away from her friends, and already apart from them.

What will she do if they see it as a betrayal, she wonders. She's not sure how she's going to manage this herself- after weeks and months of forced companionship, of perfect teamwork and, eventually, an awkward kind of easiness in their presence, suddenly being alone and adrift in the world.

But why else is she leaving, she thinks finally, if not for exactly that?

* * *

It's hot out, and the train at Balamb is almost empty. She avoids the SeeD section, seeing a small party of cadets and their families enter as she boards the train. Dressed plainly and casually, netbook open on the small folding table, she's pretty sure she's passing as a civilian. Opening the window, she breathes in deeply as the train rattles out onto the sea bridge. Despite the heat, the air seems fresher for the movement.

At ten o'clock at night, having long passed Fisherman's Horizon, the train stops at a no-name halt. Refuelling break, she guesses, and the announcement as the train shakes into the station tells her she has thirty minutes to purchase refreshments and use the facilities.

Quistis worries, as she tends to do in these situations, about being mistaken and left at the station. But she makes a compromise, in the spirit of adventure and such, and walks as far as the front of the train and back again while keeping a close eye on it in case it departs ahead of schedule. Back in her seat, she opens the meal she packed for herself- bean soup in a thermos, and cold vegetable rice, perfectly nutritionally balanced for a sedentary journey- and glances out of the window as she begins to eat. There's a tiny, seedy-looking diner across the platform, and there's even people eating there at this time of night. Fellow passengers, she assumes.

And then she freezes, because she sees a man at the counter serving the "FRESH FRIED FH FISH" advertised in the window, and he is unmistakably tall and dark.

_Of course it's not him_, she chastises herself, and turns away resolutely. _And if it is, why should I care? He can do what he likes, I'm sure_. All the same, her e-book goes unread and she falls asleep a while later, still troubled.

* * *

A whistle is blown loudly when the train arrives at Esthar twenty-five minutes behind schedule, and it jolts Quistis awake. Eight am local time, she believes, and while the sleep has refreshed her, she is not feeling at her best as she moves through the crowded station to the city shuttle. District Nineteen-C is where she's headed. These Estharians are _so_ imaginative, she thinks as she did when she made the arrangements. Not the smartest of areas, to her recollection, but she's sure that the lack of a Lunar Cry and therefore considerably less monsters will improve things this time around.

Besides, she's on a budget, since SeeD aren't going to be paying her to study unless she thwarts an assassination or a coup in the process. And then only if she's on contract at the time.

Nineteen E- D- the shuttle makes a graceful turn to the west, and here she is. She feeds her token into the machine and pays her fare to open the door - you paid when you got off here, how strange, something she'd almost forgotten.

It's a cleanish, but mostly neon-lit area, even at this hour. The long blocks of buildings, candy-coloured and translucent but tall enough to dim the morning sun, are clearly deeply familiar with the local street artists, she thinks wryly. The largest and most colourful artwork she sees tells the world proudly from fifteen feet up that _Kimi will do anything._ Not many people on the streets yet, either a shabby working-class suburban area or the kind of place that would be dead till ten at night. Hard to tell in Esthar, where people tended to live in apartments and go out to parks and allotments rather than buy a house with a garden. The outlying areas weren't fully cleared, and SeeD still got contracts from time to time to 'sanitize' and monster-proof newly-built rural properties.

_At least the streets have interesting names_, she thinks, and consults her map to find Rue Allégresse.

* * *

[two weeks later]

She had taken to sleeping during the day to avoid the oppressive heat. Sleeping at eight in the morning and rising at four in the afternoon saved money on running the pitiful metered fan unit and allowed her to work without the sounds of the street and the shuttle causing a distraction.

The apartment was let from the University of Esthar, a sprawling institution which had around thirty thousand students enrolled and, in consequence, owned blocks and blocks of subsidized housing scattered throughout the city. They'd given her a small scholarship, and allowed her to take a room. The place was large enough and had its own bathroom, for which she was thankful. The rest of the place was to be shared with four others, although since the university had recessed for summer weeks before she arrived, she had only met one, a short, furtive-looking boy of nineteen, her own age. He stayed in his room for the most part, but made his presence known in the kitchen- where he left eggs with _Pieter_ neatly printed on them in the refrigerator.

She didn't even _like_ eggs.

Although she tried to keep to a combat diet, she simply couldn't keep herself in shape properly, she realized, until the university re-opened and she could take advantage of the students' gym. After the first few days, her stomach won out and instead of sitting alone in the kitchen staring at her latest unappetizing effort, she followed her nose outside and dined on spicy shishkebabs from a cardboard carton. Although the vendor was a rural Estharian who had trouble understanding her accent, the stall was open all night and Quistis returned often. She hoped the sit-ups she was doing every afternoon would compensate for the saturated fat.

For the most part, her writing was development of the thesis that had granted her admission to the university in lieu of more traditional qualifications: that the 'limit break' phenomenon, only recorded amongst Garden soldiers, was a fusion of the greater combat abilities granted by Guardian Forces with the inherent human capability of great physical and mental effort when forced into a stressful situation.

She'd done her research, interviewed civilians who had performed great feats during wartime, and studied official reports and secondary evidence where possible. She was hoping to prove another theory during her time in Esthar: that 'limit breaks' would recur in formerly junctioned individuals even when they possessed no Guardian Forces. Individuals being herself, really. SeeD rarely sent soldiers into battle without GFs, and this was already the longest time she'd spent unjunctioned since the weeks before her SeeD exam four - no, almost five - years before.

The time in the D-District prison had been useful, after all. Even then she'd been working out how to make academic use of the worst things in her life.

Her own 'limit break' had first occurred during the SeeD exam- sent to Timber by the Galbadian government to suppress a rebel force amassing in the surrounding forest, she'd found herself cut off from the rest of her unit by enemy fire, and was facing off against two guerrilla fighters and losing. An Ochu had caught them by surprise as they attacked her, at first giving her an advantage, but one soldier had kept her at bay while the other wasted far too much ammunition on the pathetic thing. Finally she was pinned, and with a knife at her throat, the heavier of the two forced her face into the Ochu's stinking corpse while barking questions about the SeeDs' movements in guttural Galbadian. She blacked out, and the next she knew the soldiers were immobilized in a vile green goo, which she could taste in her mouth. After vomiting profusely, she'd freed her hands using the monster's sharp teeth and rejoined her unit, who together took the soldiers captive and passed the exam with honours.

Odd, that, she'd thought at the time. She'd always considered herself detached and ascetic, a born academic, and yet her limit break was so _visceral._ Perhaps her subconscious was trying to tell her something. And if so, her subconscious was _disgusting._

* * *

Upon waking, she stayed in bed for a few minutes and stared sleepily out of the large window at the heat-hazed city. The shuttle tracks were a wide arc above the street, winding their way between buildings with an especially Estharian disregard for gravity and common sense. It was rather too warm still, she decided, for working; instead, after showering the sweat away, she walked down the street and got an iced coffee to wake herself up properly.

As she left the café, drink in hand, she noticed the shop next door properly for the first time, and felt a pang of guilt; she'd been so wrapped up in settling in, unpacking, exploring the neighbourhood and most of all _working_, that she'd neglected calling home. It was a phone place, the same as you'd find in Deling or Dollet, that would sell you a "completely legit phone" for 100 gil, with 17 gil of call credit still on it and a tendency to stop working after a few days. She took special care to select a phone still sealed in its box and took the online plan with free satellite calls.

Later, in her room, after some consideration, she took a deep breath and called Selphie's SeeD com, punching in her authorization code when requested. Unconsciously, she was balling her free hand into a fist and opening it again, repeatedly, as if to crush the silly little phone. A child's phone, really, she thought, too small for her hand. And then-

"Uh, hello? Who is this? Sir Laguna? I don't usually get calls from Esthar!"

"Selphie-"

"Quisty! Where have you _been_? Like, Xu said something about Esthar, but I wasn't really listening, is it a mission? How is it? How long are you going to be?"

"I, um, I don't know how much Xu told you-"

"Like, _nothing! _Just that you'd gone to Esthar kinda suddenly and that you'd probably call! We've totally been wondering what was up, is it secret, cause like you probably wouldn't be calling if it was, but-"

"Selphie, stop and breathe."

"Okay, okay, I just _wondered!_"

"Well, I- I'll be gone for a while, that's all."

"Don't tell me, you got _my fucking job_ as Sir Laguna's security. _Seriously_?"

"It's nothing to do with SeeD, Selphie."

Quistis could hear Selphie's badly-hidden gasp of surprise, and decided to take over the conversation while she had the chance.

"I'm going to study combat science. At the university, that is, nothing to do with Doctor Odine, you'll be glad to hear."

"That guy is _creepy-_"

"Just a bachelor's on the new program, then hopefully start a master's or even a doctorate on para-magic."

There was silence on the other end of the phone. Then:

"_Just_ a bachelor's and a master's and a doctorate? Quisty, you'll be there for _years_ if you do that, what the _hell?_"

"I've made the decision."

"Well _yeah_, you're already there. What, I'm gone for a _week_ to Trabia and you just move to Esthar?"

"I've been considering it for months, really-"

"And you didn't think about telling _me?_"

"Look, I just had to see if I could get in, and then I did, and it snowballed from there, you know people look down on SeeD's academic reputation, I thought I could prove that, you know, we're not meatheads, or paid muscle-"

"Quisty, I think we proved that when we, um, _defeated the sorceress threatening the entire planet_."

"I- look, I'll call back. I'm sorry I didn't call before-"

"Whatever. Look, take care, and call back when you're sane." Selphie hung up before Quistis could reply.

* * *

After that, she decided to send emails to the rest of her acquaintances; no doubt Irvine and Zell would hear soon enough from Selphie, but Nida and Xu deserved to know she was still alive, and Squall and Rinoa- well, they probably hadn't even known she'd gone, having returned to Timber to facilitate a potential Galbadian ceasefire. But nonetheless, she'd tell them, too.

Predictably, Zell called at five the next morning, which would have been, she thought, eleven at night in Balamb. She'd given up writing up the research proposal she'd started the evening before after calling Selphie, instead switching on her portable television and passing the time watching one inane game show after another; half-naked and barefoot on the bed with the window wide open, the subtropical night was bearable after all. And, she supposed, the terrible television _might_ improve her Estharian vocabulary.

"Quistis, um, is this a bad time? I know it's kinda late there, but I just got back from town and Selphie just told me you're _gone?_"

"Yes, Zell. I'm in Esthar."

"Wow. For school, right? Not a mission?"

"Yes."

It was awkward, and Quistis' embarrassment must have reached Zell, somehow.

"Well, that's cool, you know? Uh, I mean it's kind of weird you just up and left like that, I mean we could have had a goodbye party or something! But, you get me, it's pretty awesome you got a place there and just _went for it_, yeah?"

"...Thanks."

"I mean, we'll miss you, and we'll have to, I guess, hijack the _Ragnarok_ and come visit and shit, but man, I know I got my ma and all but I'd never have the balls to just take off one day-"

And Quistis found herself laughing. Zell had a knack with people, as he did with machines, of making things okay.


	2. Enquiries

_After speaking to Zell, she fell into a kind of half-sleep, remembering the burned-match smell of Flares missing their target and scorching rock, the stench of seaweed on a rainy beach, the taste of blood and iron in her mouth casting cure after cure. The last thing that crossed her mind was perhaps a half-lost memory, of rocks and spilled blood, and of gulls circling over an empty ocean._

* * *

Quistis got up somewhat earlier than had become her habit; she had a meeting with her student advisor, "call me Rahida", to organise her class schedule. It was, unusally, an overcast day, though humid, and she wore a thin raincoat in case the weather turned. She took a pocket Estharian dictionary with her on the shuttle.

While she'd studied what was available of the language at Garden, the isolation Esthar had imposed upon itself between wars had left significant gaps in her vocabulary, and she was nervous that she might not be up to the academic standard. Thankfully, for her written application, she'd been allowed to submit her thesis in Standard Centran, which was commonly spoken throughout Balamb, eastern Galbadia, and the Centran diaspora including western and southern Esthar. Her scientific Estharian, while adequate, needed work.

The meeting was to take place in a faculty building on the main campus in District Fifteen; most of the buildings were still shut up for summer, she noticed, although caretakers were out watering the lawns – grass! - and cleaning windows. She found the building quickly and arrived ten minutes early, slightly damp and frizzed; it had indeed started to drizzle as she left the shuttle.

Her advisor was a plump, dark woman who reminded her of Doctor Kadowaki at Garden in her manner; unassuming and friendly, she quickly switched the conversation to Centran after noticing Quistis stumble a few times trying to explain her area of academic interest. They worked out a fairly rigorous schedule; she was strong in practical areas, but lacked formal qualifications in magical neuroscience. She'd have to take a three-week internship testing volunteers later in the year, Rahida explained: basic stuff, slapping electrodes on them while they had a GF temporarily junctioned, all subjects to be taken from the combat science program in any case, so they had already signed release forms in case of sudden death.

"All old hat to you of course, I suppose, but it is necessary, after all." The woman's speech was rather charming in its quaintness, Quistis decided, realising that the twenty years of nil communications had, after all, worked both ways.

She felt cheered after the meeting; Rahida had made her feel somewhat competent, praising the ideas set forth in her application, and she decided to celebrate by going shopping for the winter ahead. She'd hardly needed casual clothes at Garden, being in uniform so very often. Sadly, she discovered, SeeD-style military chic was all the rage in Esthar; most people her age seemed to be in outlandish army boots and navy denim instead of the traditional robes she'd got used to during the war and then in her new neighbourhood. Nonetheless, she found some clothes that fit her, weren't robes, and didn't remind her too much of her old uniform, and then set out for home. It was rather marvellous, she thought, being so anonymous; in Balamb, of course, SeeDs were local heroes, which did grow tedious when all you'd really done was tie your colours to someone else's mast.

Of course, there were bound to be _some _people who knew who she was.

* * *

She would decide later that the blame for everything lay squarely at the feet of the graduate students. The three graduate students who had moved in while she was shopping and who, in the way of privileged young people in higher education everywhere, already seemed to know each other. They were utterly alien to Quistis; she felt as if she were at work already, examining an entirely new species. They treated her like a monkey that had, inexplicably, learned to talk.

Merle was tall, serious until she smiled; she laughed like she was trying to eat you, and had the most ridiculous hair – pastel green which clashed horribly with her skin. Arima was small, round, and dark, with a sweet elfin face and huge brown eyes – and then there was Tomasz, who had treated her with icy, wordless disdain until a few weeks into the academic year.

She had been sitting at the kitchen table, directly under the air conditioner, sipping a glass of iced water, and preparing her notes for her three weeks of clinical trials. She'd still need to translate the lot when she'd finished, but it was too hot for dictionaries.

Tomasz had stalked in and eyed her up and down. She looked down herself, seeing nothing wrong with the vest and shorts she was wearing. It was too _damned _hot. He stood there staring at her until the silence became too much for her to bear, so she raised an eyebrow.

"I don't suppose you could move so I can eat my dinner without melting?"

She said nothing, but moved her chair. As she continued to work, she heard him snap open a styrofoam container. She could tell he was watching her, and decidedly did _not _type "You're a dickhead, you're a dickhead, you're a dickhead." She started working on her formulas for the expected initial elevation in heart rate after an initial junction. After adjusting for sex, age, height and weight -

"They make _you_ to experiment on people?" Tomasz' Centran was atrocious.

She replied in Estharian: "Why not? They let Odine do it." Hers was almost as bad, but he clearly hadn't allowed for her knowing any of his language at all. His lip curled, and she couldn't resist.

"Maybe now you will wait until I'm out before you call me a Galbadian tramp. Incidentally, I'm not from Galbadia." _As far as you need to know. For all I know, I could be._

He didn't reply, so she turned back to her computer, which was making a sound she had not heard in a long time.

_Bing – bing – beep – _On the screen, she saw a flashing icon. It read: "Incoming: Terminal Remote-BG-323A."

_Well. _This was unfortunate. And, sadly, expected. She closed her eyes for a moment, thinking; if she didn't answer, they'd probably know she was ignoring them, because it wouldn't ring if the computer wasn't on. On the other hand, the thought of taking _this_ call with Tomasz in the room was unbearable. As if reading her mind, he muttered "Kids think it's all right to ignore calls? So rude."

Fuck him, then. She answered the call, and let out a breath she hadn't known she'd been holding.

"Selphie? What are you doing at Squall's terminal?"

"I'm in charge, silly! And since I'm in charge today, I thought I'd tell you the good news first!"

"Selphie – _who put you in charge?"_

"_Squall, silly!"_

"Is he dead?"

"You are _so, so lucky _that I don't have any feelings left for you to hurt." Quistis winced, but the relief at who _wasn't _calling kept her in good humour. "Squall's in Timber, Xu is in a meeting, Nida's being pilot, and that leaves _me _in charge!"

"What about Gina?" By now, Quistis was laughing from her belly.

"I'm going to kill you! And my _good news_ is going to make it _one million _times easier!"

Quistis leaned back. "Okay, what's the good news?"

"Okay, so. This is totally confidential, but-"

"Selphie, maybe you should call back in a while."

"No! I have to tell you! Sir Laguna knows all about this anyway! Basically GalbadiaandTimberarecooperatingandthey'reworkingwithDolletandtheywannalaycablesrightundertheoceanallthewaytoEstharandthat's_awesome_because-"

"You get to kill me faster over the internet? I don't get it."

"Oh my _god, Quisty, _for a genius you are like super dumb. Okay so, number one," Selphie started counting on her fingers, "We get internet, yeah, _everywhere, _because all the good sites are in Esthar, and after putting in all that cable under the sea they're gonna put up shielded masts that put out a signal everyone can pick up. So I can call you whenever I want and not just when the weather is good and we _happen_ to be sailing under a satellite.

"Number two, SeeD is gonna be helping defend the workers who are laying the cables. We get to kill sea monsters and cast spells so the guys can breathe down there and stuff, so I can come and visit whenever I have leave, and kill you maybe if I have time.

"And number _three, _once it's done these super duper Estharian cables will ward off all the bad stuff in between there and here, so we can totally just sail over! And then, number _four, _I can watch Sir Laguna's press conferences _every day on TV _without having to steal a rocket ship! _Booyaka!_"

"...Wow, that is actually pretty cool."

"I know, right? I have to go now, because if Xu catches me here she'll go apeshit. But I wanted you to know, because Laguna's probably gonna call you." Selphie bit her lip. "Sorry."

"Why are you sorry, Selphie? This is really good news for everyone."

"You wanted to get away, didn't you? And here we are."

"Not like that." She pauses and thinks. Selphie is out of the seat and leaning over the terminal, ready to run if she's caught.

"You staying put for a little while?"

"Yeah, Garden's parked for at least another day so we can keep communications open with Timber. When I said Nida was piloting, I _meant_ he's napping on the bridge."

"I'll call you later on your com, then. And- Selphie, I'm sorry."

"Already forgiven. Love ya. Put your nipples away." And the call cut out.

Quistis breathed out again, slowly and deeply. Speaking with Selphie was always exhausting. Pleasant, yes, but she was uncomfortably aware of all the things they had yet to discuss. Not to mention the... other issue that had, as it were, been raised.

This news, though. Her brow furrowed. Esthar was still guarding itself closely; how would this change things? Would SeeD get visas for shore leave? She felt Tomasz looking at her. How much of that conversation had he understood?

He answered _that _one for her before she had time to dissemble. "You think we can travel now? To Dollet, or..."

She mumbled, distracted still, "I don't know. Sounds like it, huh?"

The smile on his face was bright and glorious.

She found out that his family had come to Esthar from Dollet before the borders closed; that he had spent his life being mocked for his paleness (she hadn't noticed), his frivolity, and his love of fashion – by the end of it, they were not quite friends, but something near to it.

She didn't mention SeeD.

_FFnet is weird with line breaks. I actually wrote most of what's already been posted in 2011 but I feel like I need to actually write it and get it out of my head so I can (hopefully) find a new fandom and stop this one sucking away my life. If anything in here annoys you severely (aside from Quistis' nipples) please beat me with a stick in the reviews section. Thanks for reading. _


	3. Checking In

_(On a dirt road on the way to somewhere)_

The wind twists and turns in her hands. It's fanciful of her, but she imagines each pass is its own farewell, thanking her for time spent in its company. She plays with it until the thought comes to her that she is a child still, pretending each gust and whisper were a friend come to tell secrets. She turns it in on itself, pours her own frustration and bitterness into it, curls it close and then hurls it away.

"That'll be a storm tomorrow." His tone is neutral.

"Good."

* * *

They've been on the move for three days now. Three days since they boarded up the diner and threw the keys through the letterbox, spent not sleeping and snapping across at one another, trapped in a van that reeks of sweat and salt fish. Time enough to turn even the closest of comrades into snarling, grubby louts ripe enough to be turned away by Esthar's border control.

This would make a bad road movie, she thinks. They aren't buddies, or any kind of posse now. Just three kids in a truck, each knowing too much to hate the others, but hating that they know it all the same. Things have been rotten for a long time now, even before the soldiers started circling closer, even before the news of Garden's arrival finally sent them running again.

Seifer has made them stop to get clean in the salt flats. Plenty of brackish ditch-water to make them wince as they scrub, sand in the water making tiny cuts that burn and sting. All these small indignities are to be endured for the promise of a better life. How many times has she heard that? So many grand promises have got them through the kinds of lives that _normal_ people would never live, would choose death first.

There's no promise waiting for them now, only another of Seifer's fever-dreams.

She's remembering another time in another flat, sunburned desert, fear sliding under her skin with the recollection of crystal walls looping endlessly, fighting to breathe air so still it might be centuries old, and hearing monsters shriek from the shadows.

_Are you strong or are you not-strong, Fujin? _

She is lurching hopelessly behind, as Raijin strides through a stopped-clock maze for what could be forever. Seifer is over his shoulders in a fireman's lift; she feels strangely weightless herself. Her stomach is where her head should be.

There is a a ragged, hoarse voice singing - _"suan ná séan ní bhfuaireas féin, ó chuaigh i gcéin mo ghile mear..."_\- the voice is hers, and she lets the tune carry her forward to Raijin. "Stop." she says. "Rest."

They sleep cradled in cold crystal, and do not dream. When they wake the air is flowing again. She lets Pandemona lead them out from the tomb and back into a world that is still, somehow, alive.

The brine trickling down her forehead reaches her eye. The sting brings her back to the present. The three of them glance at each other and wordlessly head back to the van. There's still five miles or so to the border crossing, and none of them want to think any longer on the last time they were here.

* * *

Quistis blames the graduate students, because there is no one else to blame but herself. She's grown up enough, by now, to know when things are not her fault.

The party is in full swing at their apartment, and Merle has made ironic bunting from cereal packets that reads _Welcome Freshmen!_ Quistis does not feel welcome, or particularly fresh; she is bruised and stinging from whip-duelling all day with no junctions, and wants to sleep. The mysterious Pietr has deigned to leave his room for this, and he is glaring at her, as if this were all her doing. Well, it's _not, _she thinks viciously, but she is almost cruel enough to wish it so, to spite him.

She shakes herself. The only reason for such nastiness in her is the phone call she's just taken, stuffed in her wardrobe for a little quiet since the music is shaking the walls.

* * *

She's stuffed on a sofa between Merle and a guy playing bad guitar to the song Tomasz has just put on. Merle leans down and says something to Quistis she can't make out, so she moves closer:

"You're buzzing, or are you just glad to see me?"

Sure enough, Quistis' phone has vibrated right out of her pocket and down the side of the sofa, where it is still angrily flashing with the call sign BG-232-A.

She's drunk just enough not to quietly ignore this, the first Garden call in two weeks. It's easy enough to slam her laptop closed and hide under her covers; harder to rein in what she's feeling right now. So, when she takes the phone with her to her room, at first fully intending to throw it into the back of her wardrobe, she pauses. When the next ring comes, she answers.

"Trepe?" It's hesitant, enough to make her bite her lip and reconsider the words that want to leap out.

"Commander."

He sighs and she can almost see the gesture; he has his palm over his face, as if closing his eyes will take him to a place where he no longer has to deal with her.

"Report."

She sighs. "Rinoa's training is going well." Leaving unmentioned all the weeks of planning it took to move a fledgling Galbadian sorceress to a city that hates foreigners – and, of course, witches. "She's thriving."

Rinoa is beloved wherever she goes, charming and charmed by equal measure. She's spurned Laguna's offer of a suite in the palace for a dump that only a student would live in, and would probably be singing along to "Streets of Deling" with some dreadlocked moron right now. Except that Tomasz, spellbound, has invited her over.

Squall is taking an age to respond.

"She'll be here soon. You haven't spoken to her at all, then?"

She's hidden the slur creeping into her voice pretty well there at the end, she thinks. She wonders if the shaking of the walls is making her sound drunker than she is. She wonders if thinking about it makes her sound drunker than she is.

She wonders how anyone would _hear _her thoughts, and remembers that Ellone still lives here. She shivers.

Squall still isn't answering. She huffs impatiently without really realising she's done it, and this gets her a full sentence.

"No contact. It's what she asked for."

Quistis holds back the snarl of frustration bursting to come out. She knows there's something that Squall doesn't want to talk about. There is a part of her that needs to have its nose in everything, and it eats away at her with an anxiety she cannot name if she doesn't dig and claw desperately for the _truth_. Often she thinks that without it, she'd be the last to know anything at all.

The smart part of her, on the other hand, the part that doesn't have the cold sweats and the twitch in its left eye – _that _part thinks she should leave well alone. She owes him.

But - fuck it. He owes her right back, so she lets him have it.

"I didn't sign up to be a mediator. Or a babysitter. It's not my job to keep her safe. You know as well as I that sneaking around pretending I'm her – cousin or whatever – is no way to watch her."

"You're not watching her, Quistis, you're not a bodyguard, I-"

"What?"

"I just need to know that there's someone there that she can trust."

"So what do I do if something goes wrong? When someone kidnaps her, I'll just call in a squad? _That'll _work out well." She's flailing, angry, reaching for things that will hurt.

"Quistis."

She shuts up.

"Quistis - Laguna knows she's a sorceress, and I don't trust him. Or Kiros, or Ward."

Her mind races ahead, as usual. So Squall hasn't made the logical leap that she had made the second she looked at Laguna. The rest of them had seen a man blindsided by looking into the face of his son for the first time; Squall had seen –

\- what _had _Squall seen?

"Laguna doesn't like Odine any more than you do, Commander."

He sighs, and as she's regretting the anger, thinking of something reassuring to say, the doorbell rings.

"I have to go. Your girlfriend is here."

She hangs up and feels guilty again almost immediately, but does not call him back to apologise.

* * *

Rinoa is already making friends with Pietr; it's going as well as making friends with Rinoa often goes, when one party is unwilling. She's giggling, leaning into his face, speaking in bad Estharian – _you will enjoy my company _is what Quistis hears before deliberately moving in front of a speaker so she can't hear any more.

At times like these, she wishes she could remember her childhood. The twist in her personality, the need to please others, the sick feeling she gets when she feels she _didn't try hard enough_, if she knew where it came from – a shudder runs through her and catches at the back of her throat. Ellone would go back and find it for her, if she asked, but the thought of her sympathy is terrifying, worse than the fear of failure.

So she takes a drink, leans against the wall, and tries not to think about what could go wrong.


End file.
